caesura

[si-zhoor-uh, -zoor-uh, siz-yoor-uh]

noun

plural

caesuras, caesurae 

1. Prosody.,  a break, especially a sense pause, usually near the middle of a verse, and marked in scansion by a double vertical line, as in know then thyself ‖ presume not God to scan.

2. Classical Prosody.,  a division made by the ending of a word within a foot, or sometimes at the end of a foot, especially in certain recognized places near the middle of a verse.

3. any break, pause, or interruption.

caesura

/ sɪˈzjʊərə /

noun

1. Usual symbol: ||. (in modern prosody) a pause, esp for sense, usually near the middle of a verse line

2. (in classical prosody) a break between words within a metrical foot, usually in the third or fourth foot of the line

Other Word Forms

• caesural adjective
• caesuric adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of caesura¹

1550–60; < Latin, equivalent to caes ( us ) cut (past participle of caedere ) ( caed- cut + -tus past participle suffix) + -ūra -ure

Word History and Origins

Origin of caesura¹

C16: from Latin, literally: a cutting, from caedere to cut

Example Sentences

What I mean, I suppose, is that this long infatuation is now a marriage — as demanding and exasperating at times as any marriage, and with long caesuras of drudgery.

Read more on Seattle Times

This creates a medial caesura, splitting the line into two more or less equal halves, a technique famously employed a thousand years ago by the unknown poet who set “Beowulf” to the page.

Read more on New York Times

If the pandemic had a musical score, that trick ending might be a caesura, shown by two parallel diagonal lines: railroad tracks, only we ran out of rail.

Read more on The Guardian

Among those of a more pessimistic bent, suspicions that somewhere deep in the bowels of Westminster a press release was being composed urging people not to read anything into this cupric caesura.

Read more on The Guardian

That is a semicolon from the heavens, you know, it’s like the most amazing caesura, to say these two things that are simultaneous and true.

Read more on The New Yorker